


The Line Between Us

by lady_mab



Category: The Big O (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Zine, just androids having thoughts about what it means to be human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29267559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: Dorothy struggles to think of the right word. The word that would describe them best. “You’ve lost your conscience.”It feels so human to say, so vulnerable.Where is the line, between monster and machine? Which is she?Memory, monster, machine. They are all the same, they are all different. They have their own thoughts and patterns and feelings and emotions.They are all these things, they are tangled together, and they are linked. Memory and monster and machine forming a chain, wrapped around her ankles and around her wrists and her neck and strangling her.
Kudos: 1





	The Line Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> _We could have made them look like anything but we made them look like us._  
>  \- [Austin Walker, COUNTER/Weight 00](https://friendsatthetable.net/counterweight-00-if-han-solo-used-to-be-beyonc-or-hashtag-otechku)

R. Dorothy Wayneright always knew her place in relation to the humans in her life. 

Miguel Soldano, who expected nothing of her but to be a representation of his skills and ego. Timothy Wayneright, who looked at her and saw someone else but otherwise expected nothing of her beyond the occasional song. 

Dorothy Wayneright herself, the girl she was modeled after. Who had no opinions, being dead and gone. Who was a memory that no one could cling to long enough for it to mean anything. 

It never used to bother her until she began to live with Roger Smith. 

(“Stop trying to imitate us,” Roger says in _that tone_ , the one where she can’t tell if he’s annoyed or tired or just saying it because it’s routine at this point.)

She doesn’t know how to respond to that. Does she want to be someone else — the girl she was modeled after? In another life, in another city, Dorothy the girl who would sing to her father. The alternate reality where she never met Roger Smith, where she never died and became immortalized as an android. 

It’s an idle daydream, if even that. Can androids dream? Can they long for something they know, logically, is out of reach and never could exist within the confines of reality — due to the path those in the past had taken, setting this future in motion. 

Dorothy likes to think that she dreams.

And in those dreams, she indulges in a different reality. It is exactly the same as the one she is in, which makes it easier to believe. It is exactly the same in every respect, except in that one, Roger does not give her _that look_ , the one he gets when he forgets that she is an android. 

He either always remembers, or he never knew to begin with, but in her different reality, he doesn’t _forget_.

* * *

The thing about fear is that it tends to linger in a myriad of tiny, infuriatingly human ways. 

But what does she know about being human? Where does she get to be able to compare this jolt that runs through her systems like electricity when she first hears the voice of the Archetype to the way she found Roger crumpled on the floor of the subway tunnel. The fear that made his voice tremble and his skin break out in sweat. 

Is it _fear_ if she does not experience those same things? 

(“I know you can’t feel terror,” Roger says as they walk down the tunnel together. “Do you care to know what it’s like?” 

She didn’t, then, never wanted this. Never wanted to understand. Never should have understood.) 

The Archetype doesn’t speak in words. Not in the same way that she does, that humans do. It speaks in promises, in threats, in a string of zeros and ones that transcends language. But she understands it intrinsically. 

And when it speaks, she _feels_ for the first time. She recognizes the emotion for what it is, in the echo of the same fear she saw on Roger’s face. 

Her knees lock and her legs turn to jelly — a strange sensation for a girl with perfect poise and posture, to suddenly feel the pistons and servos of her joints simply give up — how human a sensation, she thinks, as she fights to stay upright. 

_We are the same, you and I_ , the Archetype says without words. _We remember._

Dorothy doesn’t remember. She is built in honor of a memory, but she has none of her own. That is not what scares her, though. 

What scares her is that she _could_ be like this thing. Huge, powerful, forgotten beneath the city. Hungry and _angry_ and desperate to reclaim its place. 

What scares her is the force of its desires, and how, when its whispers fill the underground cavern, she believes (if only for a moment) that she, too, wants these things. 

* * *

(“There are those who would turn away from something that frightens them,” Roger says, as they walk down that hall together, towards the thing that made him so afraid. “And there are those who would try to see it for what it is.”) 

This thing, this beast, this _monster_ , it is not like her. She knows this. She knows that she is nothing like it, that even Dorothy-1 is not like it — though it is the Archetype, it is the root of their creation, it is the initial stave that the melody is then improvised upon. 

It cannot be allowed to exist. It should not have ever existed. And in its voice, the chords that pulse through her, send her stumbling and running in an ungraceful gait, she hears it calling to her. 

Calling her sister, daughter. Calling her coward. 

(“Remember,” Roger says, as she gives in to that strange, primal urge to flee. “You don’t need to feel fear.”) 

She doesn’t. She shouldn’t. 

But she does. 

(“Take a good look,” Roger says, as Big O’s arm swings overhead and collides with the Archetype’s grin. “That thing is a monster that’s got _nothing_ to do with you.”) 

Dorothy stops. She turns. And she looks. 

_I am not afraid of you_ , she thinks. 

_You should be_. The broken array of lights flicker and spark behind its broken panels. It seethes and wheezes and stares straight down at her. 

She stares back, defiant. _I am not like you, and I am not afraid of you._

* * *

Roger’s words are oddly reassuring. They have that effect on people. 

They apparently have that effect on androids as well. 

* * *

“How is it, Roger Smith, that you are alright with Instro?” 

The words slip out before she can stop them, and if she could feel shame, she imagines that she might feel it right then. 

But in this reality, the one where she is an android, she does not feel. She cannot feel, should not, does not. 

He doesn’t take his eyes from the road as he drives through puddles that have never quite dried out from the last rain, through empty streets, the piano echoing faintly in the back of their minds. “What, you mean his piano playing? I told you, he has heart.” 

She can feel her lips flicker into a frown — just for the briefest of moments, but it’s enough to make her wonder over it. “No, I mean… him.” 

“You’re going to have to be more specific.” 

“He and I are the same.” 

Roger snorts and doesn’t bother with the turn signal as he cuts between two trucks. “You two aren’t anything alike.” 

Dorothy doesn’t react, because she doesn’t know how she would be expected to in this kind of situation. “I cannot help but feel that you are insulting me.” 

(“Stop trying to imitate us,” goes unspoken.)

“You are both functionally different models. He has the hands of a pianist. Well, he _had_.” Roger frowns at this, and Dorothy takes the opportunity to study the way the expression sits on his face. The way the lines around his mouth crease — how this frown is different from the one that she saw that morning when she woke him up at exactly 12:03:57 with her piano playing. That frown, then, had sat heavy between his brows. 

This one is light, the slightest pull at his lips. She can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, and he still refuses to look away from the road. 

_I heard what you said to him_ , Dorothy wants to say. _I heard how you said Instro was so human, and you didn’t say it like an insult_. 

What would he say to that? Would he try to cover his mistake, would he try to apologize? Would he give another flimsy excuse? 

Instro, she knows, will be valuable — a valuable companion and teacher. She is not mad at him because she doesn't know how to be. 

Then what is this emotion that she feels towards Roger? As he compliments this other android so easily, as he refuses to look at her and answer her question. 

By the time she thinks she might have a decent response to that, it is far too late. They pull into the underground garage of the bank that Roger made his home, and he turns to Norman about dinner. 

Dorothy knows that she should follow behind him to the dining room, but she lingers at the piano for just a moment. 

_Longing_ , she thinks, as her slender fingers stroke the keys without the slightest hint at pressure. That is what she feels, but she does not know the source of it. 

She doesn't think she wants to know, and she closes the case over the keys before leaving the room. 

* * *

The cat named Pero seems so small and fragile. She knows she could hurt it so easily, if she was any less careful. 

Roger stands just behind her, back to the broken pillar, as he considers the overcast sky. “You know you can’t keep it,” he says, in a soft voice, like he’s sorry he has to say such a thing to her. 

_Why_ would be the correct question. _Clearly no one else did_. But Dorothy has to stop and consider this want, this need. 

She who has no wants, no needs. Do protocols count as needs? The compulsion to follow a directive — how does that fit in with wants and needs? 

He does not believe that she wants to protect this small and fragile cat with such a fierce longing that even she is startled by it. Not that it shows on her face at all. 

So instead, she says, “Then it is simply a matter of your affections being put to the test.” She knows where her affections, such as they are, lie. (She does not know if she means his affections towards her, or towards small and fragile creatures in general.) 

Roger sputters in surprise, and Dorothy shifts the slightest degree to preempt any escape attempt Pero might make out of surprise. But the kitten sleeps on, content, despite Roger’s noise. “An android talking about affections?” he says, and she looks at him to see what sort of expression he makes as he once again insults her. 

Let Instro play the piano, that is one thing. His love and concern for his late father is another. He and Dorothy are nothing alike, he can have that affection when she cannot. 

The moment their eyes meet, what little color there is in Roger’s cheeks drains to an embarrassed pallor. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she wonders what sort of expression _she_ is making to cause him to apologize. She doesn’t know if she wants to believe that he’s correcting himself because he’s learned. 

Though, perhaps… 

He does look truly apologetic when he tells her to find Pero’s owners. That someone out there who loves the cat would very much like him back. He doesn’t seem to understand that she also loves the cat very much. 

Or she is overwhelmed with the desire to protect this cat. 

Is that a directive? To _do no harm_ to the creature that cannot protect itself against her? 

Is that affection, or is that programming? 

Is an emotion not a result of preconceived impressions — of the brain’s chemical reaction based on previous encounters and stories, a code of human design instead of a string of zeros and ones. 

A human is built on a core database of memories, which inform their own sort of programming language. Forty years ago, all beings, humans and androids, lost their memories. But they have formed new ones in the time since.

Dorothy feels affection towards this cat — towards… 

Well, it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t understand. 

* * *

In the end, Dorothy does as she is told. 

An order is an order. Her directive is in her programming. 

In the end, it doesn’t make a difference. 

In the end, perhaps, it is her affection that allows her to get taken as well.

* * *

Smoke and rain and ash and, beneath it all, burning flesh. The sting of chemicals. The distant howls of pain at the memory of the captivity, howls of freedom as they are broken back down into composite pieces. 

Into smoke and rain and ash.

Her gut churns, or it feels like it does. What bits and pieces of her move in such a way that make her feel like this? 

Roger’s hand is at her back, turning her away from the wreckage of the building. He is speaking softly — to someone, not her. To Dastun, perhaps. Their voices are low, muted. Barely audible over the rain. 

It feels like mourning. It feels like the muffled conversation that happened around her at Doctor Wayneright’s funeral. Are they worried about hurting her feelings? Did they _forget_ that she does not have any? 

No, that’s a lie. 

Dorothy knows, deep down, that that is a lie. 

Eugene, for all his failings, taught her _disgust_ and _revulsion_. Perhaps he also taught her _sorrow_. 

(“Memories of the girl she was modeled after. Is it possible she’s being ruled by the memories of that dead girl?” 

Dorothy wants to tell him that no, these feelings are her own. What the human Dorothy knew and understood was shaped by her experiences. 

Just as she, R. Dorothy, understands: she should not be able to feel these things, and yet she does. She is this way because of her own experiences. They are her emotions, and no one else’s.)

* * *

He looks at her as they stand across the roof from one another, and a question that isn’t hers, shouldn’t be hers — can’t be hers, but is — rises up in her thoughts.

Dorothy wants to know, but at the same time doesn’t. Is that a logical feeling to have, for an android that shouldn’t feel? 

He waits, patiently, a softness to his expression that she studies, and wonders what it means. 

So she asks, because she doesn’t know not to. “If neither of us had memories, and we met… would you and I fall in love as well?” 

Roger doesn’t answer her. He dances around the question with all the grace of a three-legged service bot. 

Dorothy doesn’t press him for an answer because it was a foolish question anyway. She doesn’t want to know the answer. She doesn’t. (She does. Distantly. A small part of her does. The Dorothy who used to be human, who would sing for her father, who would walk down the street and meet a man dressed all in black and find him charming.) 

(These are not her memories. They belong to no one. They belong to that idle daydream, the different reality, where Roger does not forget because either he does not know or he does not care, but _he does not forget_.) 

* * *

At what point does an android gain their autonomy? 

Dorothy acts and thinks for herself, the same way any human does. Instro, though he does not look like her, has the ability to play the piano in a way that elicits strong emotions from his listeners. That is not programming. 

That is, what humans would call, having heart.

At what point does an android differ from a megadeus? 

Dorothy wonders over the Archetype’s words, _we are the same you and I_ , and Dorothy watches Schwarzwald’s megadeus, the Big Duo, as it crawls out of the pit without a pilot. 

_I am not like you_ , she had thought then, as she screamed and sang its tune. As she felt herself become the melody written over its staves. 

And watching Big Duo experience fear the same way she did — that need for self preservation, that _need_ to get as _far away as possible_ , she wonders… 

_Where is the line between us?_

* * *

The Leviathan beneath the surface of the city asks her the same question. Like the Archetype, it speaks in strings of code that she interprets without a second thought. 

_We are the same, you and I_ , it tells her, but this time she is not afraid. She is not afraid. 

She is not. 

“I don’t know,” she confesses as she stands on the precipice, listening to its roar of machinery and the rumble of destruction. It feels so vulnerable to say, so human. To not know something, to not truly understand it. “Are we the same? You’ve lost your…” Dorothy struggles to think of the right word. The word that would describe them best. “You’ve lost your conscience.” 

It feels so human to say, so vulnerable. 

Where is the line, between monster and machine? Which is she? 

Memory, monster, machine. They are all the same, they are all different. They have their own thoughts and patterns and feelings and emotions. 

They are all these things, they are tangled together, and they are linked. Memory and monster and machine forming a chain, wrapped around her ankles and around her wrists and her neck and strangling her. 

“I can’t be a part of you,” she says, and it sounds like an apology. “No one can.” 

She stands her ground, because _she is not afraid_. Her body trembles, but she passes that off to the way that the building bucks and sways beneath her. 

She stands her ground, until it erupts beneath her. 

Big O, empty, _angry_ and afraid and protective. 

Big O, autonomous. 

But she can feel Roger’s emotions, and she is not afraid. 

* * *

Dorothy watches Kelly Fitzgerald for any of the signs that she is so used to seeing — trying to find the slight hesitation before her hand lands on her husband’s shoulder, trying to find the way her gaze won’t quite reach — but she finds none of them. 

There is no pause, there is no hesitation. 

There is grief, and that is real. It is raw and broken and bleeding as she clutches the pieces of her husband’s head. 

Dorothy watches this, and she wonders, _Is this what it means to love?_

She doesn’t look at Roger. Because this is not that reality, and he did forget. 

Instead, she watches Kelly, and she wonders if this emotion inside of her is _mourning_.

* * *

Curiosity, even in humans, is considered a flaw. 

When she hears the song, Dorothy goes anyway. 

She doesn’t know why. Perhaps it is that piece inside of her that is always chasing a song — on the piano, at the microphone, lifted from the throats of a dozen political dissidents. 

Angel is there, which isn’t a surprise. 

Angel looks like she regrets everything, which _is_ a surprise. 

Uncharitably, Dorothy has always wondered if the woman would know an honest emotion even if it walked up to her wearing a black suit. 

And when Angel spots her, and recognizes her, Dorothy realizes that _yes_ , perhaps, Angel does know that honest emotion. 

Dorothy wonders if she hates Angel for it — if this ugly, twisted emotion inside of her now is the one that she experienced when she found the lipstick stained cigarette butts, the one when she watched Roger’s gaze slide to the blonde every time. 

Is this hate?

In the end, it’s not the right time to consider it, because then there is Allen Gabriel, and there is fear and something else that might also be hate — and the emotions aren’t just Dorothy’s, they’re Angel’s. 

* * *

“Run,” he says. “Run away, little doll.” 

And so she does, because it’s a command as much as it is a taunt. And he is still human enough that her brain doesn’t know the difference. 

He catches her because he is not human enough to fail. He is different enough to terrify her, but not the way that the Archetype or the Leviathan did. Those were fears rooted deep in herself, in her own sense of identity. 

The fear he instills in her is as different as he is. 

It is numbingly human, and that is how he catches her. Because he is not human enough, and she is too human when it counts. 

( _Androids that live with a human long enough come to understand human emotions_ , she heard once.)

Her leg hurts, not because she has the nerve endings to feel it, but because a part of her knows that this is the response that should be had when your hamstring is shot. Her arm hangs limp at her side. Pistons and servos, not muscle and blood. 

Allen knows how to dismantle both, because he is made of both. 

He’s speaking as he towers over her, though it’s not to her. It’s to Angel, her voice thin and strained and barely audible over the whirling metal hand as it bores down on her. “ _Angel_ ,” he says, voice dripping with sweetness and mockery. “Don’t you think it’ll help our mission if I humiliate the man who cares for this android more than anyone?” Allen grins, all teeth, all unnatural angles, but his words aren't meant for Dorothy even as he studies the shape she makes beneath his foot, splayed out on the platform. 

It’s enough to get Angel to hesitate. To lower her gun. To look at Dorothy like _she_ is at fault for all of this. 

Dorothy wants to tell her that she’s wrong. That he won’t come, because it’s not like that. That he won’t come, because he’s not a fool. 

That he won’t come, because he doesn’t know. How can he know? 

That doesn’t change the fact that a small, tiny part inside of her, the one that screams and thrashes against this thing on top of her, the one that sobs and beats her fists against the confines of an android’s emotions, hopes that she’s wrong. 

* * *

_No_ , Dorothy thinks, as her fingers curl into a fist. _Roger doesn’t need to come and save me. It isn’t like that, and he isn’t a fool._

She punches Allen before his drill can do more than clip her fringe. Dorothy regains her feet, albeit unsteadily, and dares him to take another step towards her. 

“Damn you, little puppet,” he growls, but the humor is still there. The too-sharp grin still cuts the edges of his mouth like a blade. His movements are fluid, unnatural, as he pushes himself upright to stand across from her. 

He lunges, and she dodges. What need does she have of fear? Send an android to fight a cyborg. She should not have allowed herself to run. She should have stood to face him, and now he has the upper hand. 

“Where are you going to jump to next?” Allen asks, as she wobbles on the railing over a pit. 

If she had full control of her faculties, she could easily make the jump back to solid ground. She could easily lose him in the tunnels. 

But instead she stands there, uncertain, and considers. 

He starts to move towards her, what would possibly be the final blow, before the screeching of tires and glare of headlights charges towards them from down the abandoned tunnel. 

Dorothy knows that it’s Roger, even with the wail of the police siren. She would know his driving anywhere. 

The car pulls to a stop, Roger steps out and his eyes find hers immediately. Like they could look nowhere else but _her_ , and she doesn’t know what that means. Roger, whose gaze would always slip to Angel whenever she was in a room, looks at Dorothy. 

The lines of his face drawn, serious. The corners of his mouth pinched in concern. No sunglasses to hide his eyes this time. The whole of his emotion, on display. 

She doesn’t know what that means. 

The relief? The satisfaction? The inexplicable emotion that she feels at that subtle choice — how he glances briefly at Angel but returns to Dorothy without hesitation. That he turns to her _first_. 

* * *

_Smug_ is a new feeling, as Angel flees. _Proud_ is another, as Roger charges at Allen without fear. 

* * *

It’s a soft give and take, banter unable to fully smother the concern beneath. Dorothy likes who she is when they are together, when they work together. 

Roger doesn’t have to carry her, but he does, and she lets him. 

And when she grabs his watch, so that he can accept the call, he gives her a relieved and fond smile. “Thank you, Dorothy,” he says, unwilling to let her go. 

(At least, that is what she imagines what it means, in this alternate reality where she is allowed this indulgence.) 

Dorothy removes herself from his grip. It was kind of him, but unnecessary. The indulgence is over. “Next time,” she says, with a new kind of bravery, “you’ll be the one to take me home.” 

Roger doesn’t turn from her, tracking her movement with his dark eyes. The whole of his emotion, written across his face. He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to.

She understands.

* * *

“I am what I am, I am not like those robots or Roger.” She is not like the other androids. She is not like Allen Gabriel. Or Big O. She is not human.

There is fear in Norman’s voice, confusion and concern. How is it that humans are always so afraid, so confused? “What are you going on about, Dorothy?” 

In the end, she lets herself get taken. They are here for her, not for Norman. Not for Big O. 

Not for Roger, when he sweeps in to save the day like always. 

She does not regret, because she does not know how. Not really. She does not regret because she can’t, because this is the choice she made for herself. “I am what I am, Roger, I will always have this same body, and this same heart.” 

Pistons and servos, not muscle and blood: That is what makes her function. 

But memories, and emotions, that is what makes her R. Dorothy Wayneright. 

His expression shifts, honest emotion written clearly over every angle of it. The fear, the desperation, the pain at her words. “As strong as you are, you can break free!” he shouts, as he strains to reach for her. 

Her heart breaks, a little, but she is not afraid. The distance grows between them, and he reaches for her, but it is not enough. It will never be enough. “You have to take control of your own destiny!” 

* * *

Roger’s words are oddly reassuring. They have that effect on Dorothy. 

_This is not the end,_ she thinks, as she closes her eyes and lets the robot carry her away.

* * *

(“Dorothy,” Roger says, his voice low and broken in a way she was not used to being directed to her. “Since you first came to live here, I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

 _The girl who would sing for her father, who meets the man dressed all in black._

“You know, I never answered that question you had asked me awhile ago, did I? You had asked, if you had been human, instead of an android, would you and I have fallen in love…” 

_That different reality, the one so close to this one. It is exactly the same in every respect, except in that one, she is human._

“If things had been different like you said, then maybe we would have. That’s my answer to you.” 

_That she is human, herself but human. Her lived experiences and memories, not a girl dead and gone and immortalized in an android. They are two different people._

“And please don’t tell me that I’m dodging the issue. Right now, I can’t seem to commit to one truth. But I know that I won’t waver in doing what needs to be done, or in going down the path that I have to take.”

 _As strong as you are, you can break free_ , he told her not too long ago. The last time she saw him. The time she should have said goodbye, because it would have been easier than this. _You have to take control of your own destiny_.

She wishes she could tell him the same thing now. 

His hand reaches for her, wavers, then falls back to his side. “Wait for me.”)

* * *

Roger Smith, the Negotiator. He has saved Paradigm City more times than it even knows. He has saved Dorothy several times, in his own way. 

Always the gentleman. Always the knight in shining armor. Always always _always_ putting himself out in front — despite fear, despite not knowing, despite everything. 

He does this all because he believes in something, and even when that faith is ripped out from underneath him, still he keeps fighting. 

* * *

Dorothy saves him, right before the end. She has saved him before, but this is the last time. 

This is their relationship, this give and take. This partnership. Human and android. 

With him, she is without fear. With him, she will help change the destiny that is a forgotten memory, scrawled upon blank pages. 

And in the end, it’s his stupid, fearless, _beautiful_ humanity that saves them all, one last time. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this late last year for [_Metropolis: The Big O Fanzine_](https://gumroad.com/l/BigOZine) that was put together to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary! It's free over on Gumroad, so go check out the FANTASTIC art that's inside, as well as one other fic and an essay. I had a lot of fun and loved the excuse to marathon the show AGAIN. Come talk to me about androids and humans and the line between them i'm over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/littleladymab) & [tumblr](https://littleladymab.tumblr.com/) @ littleladymab!


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